French multinational investment bank and financial services company SocGen has divested its 20 percent stake in SeABank.
A bank representative told VnExpress that the Societe generale Group (SocGen), as part of a non-core assets sales spree, has completely divested its stake in Hanoi-based private bank Southeast Asia Bank (SeABank).
SocGen began divesting its stake since the beginning of 2018 in order to restructure its investment portfolio, as it exits non-core markets in Vietnam and all of Asia, the representative said.
Previously, SocGen had also divested 100 percent of its stake in its own consumer finance arm in Vietnam, selling Societe generale Vietnam Finance Company Limited (SGVF) to Vietnam’s HDBank.
The French investment group is pulling out of many of its investments globally. In February 2018, it completed the sale of several banks based in South Africa, Albania and Bulgaria.
The bank’s plan is to restructure its portfolio by exiting countries or businesses where it lacks critical size and consolidating its positions where it is already strong, Reuters has reported.
In SeABank’s latest financial report, the bank is now wholly owned by domestic shareholders, with one sole major shareholder holding 9.3 percent.
SeABank, by the end of 2018, had total assets of over VND141 trillion ($6.1 billion) with a charter capital of nearly VND7.7 trillion ($332.93 million). In 2018, it reported pre-tax profits of VND618 billion ($26.72 million).
